Soooo, last time I left off on the story, I had a new engine builder and was finding out that I needed a new set of pistons, head work and re-assembly. One note I forgot to mention was that the day the engine ingested something, it had the smallest blower pulley on it I had and it made 18lbs at 5400 RPM! That was with belt slip too. Too much for 93 octane I thought (I want it to be a pump gas car for now), so afterwards I stepped down to the pulley that's on it today. I'll save the small pulley for E85, race gas, or water injection that is shortly down the road

About this time I ordered a 4L80E, as I didn't want to ruin a perfectly good Art Carr 700R4 that was in the car. I figured it was worth more intact and still nearly new then all roached out from too much power. I could also use the BS3 to control the 4L80E, but I had to send it back to Meaney for some modifications. There was a couple other things done then too I think, don't recall exactly. There was some new valve springs put in, the new pistons, all the machine work was re-done, etc...

Also, at that point I was going to use a new tuner because the one I was working with was a fairly large drive away, and the new tuner was a guy I knew from years ago and had a new shop with another couple dudes I knew as friends of friends. He came and picked up the car and drove it to his place, but the car still had cooling issues.

We realized that the car was missing some of the stock plastic duct work, so I scrounged that up and had it dropped off. We also decided to go away from the huge Griffin radiator because it seemed to not be cooling well enough. It was so tall it had to be leaned at an extreme angle and the air coming in from the front of the car wasn't going though it well. Even with a giant Spal fan and the electric pump it wasn't cooling well. We ended up buying a new set of factory fans and a new factory radiator (the thicker one of the bunch). and once all that stuff was in place, it cooled well.

About that point, the converted opti was acting up again, and it was causing the car to occasionally freak out with some sputtering and a backfire once in a while. At that point the tuner was able to start the car with the sensor on, but then shut it off once it was running to get some pulls in. After battling some belt slip, we got a few pulls in, but there is still the concern of the sensor and the tuner is wanting to re-check the timing too.

From the very beginning on this build I've wanted to use the opti as a cam sensor, and go to a coil on plug setup, but it seemed there were very few good ways to do it. One would be to cut a distributor hole in the back of the intake and drop in a GM truck vortech cam sensor. Another I had heard of was someone who had a new wheel cut for the factory opti and used the optical pickup as a way to send a signal to an aftermarket computer. Finally, the choice I made, was to go to an opti that was gutted and another sensor added to it to simulate the LSX 1X signal. Here's a couple pictures of it. The first one was an initial try, the second was when another part was added to the wheel to improve the signal for the sensor.





Now as a warning, don't waste your time with this! It's not worth it. By the time you buy an opti, spend the money on the sensor, $150 (I ended up going through 2 of them...) and fab up a bracket, you're way over the price of just setting up one of these:



It's far worth it in the long run. This setup will allow you to run an LSX stock computer if you want to. I'd recommend it if you don't want to go to an aftermarket PCM box. I'll also add that I have just ordered this setup a few days ago and have not yet tried it. I think it should work well though, and the ability to buy the GM off the shelf sensor for the cam signal is a nice plus too. What was once a good idea now is not. The aftermarket caught up with me.

I chose to just go with their cam sensor housing and sensor, and keep the 24X crank trigger setup I alredy had. It would be too much work to swap all the crank portion stuff this late in the game with the machined timing cover for the BB hub, machined spacer, blower pulley alignment, etc, etc...

 

Thanks, sure, it's a K&N piece that they offer with an LS1 air intake setup. I was able to buy just the radiator mount as I couldn't find a stock upper mount very quickly.

 

Update. I talked to the tuner today and he told me he got some clean pulls in with the new cam sync parts, the belt slip taken care of and the timing sorted out (the pointer was off a little bit). He didn't have the data logs in front of him but told me it made 687 RWHP and 612RWTQ at about 11 PSI.

That was at a little under 6000 RPM and mid twenties on timing. The power drops off at about 6300. The testing was done on a Mustang dyno and the car was heat soaked. The runs were done on 93 octane pump gas. He said it blew the exhaust off a couple times so they put some screws in at a clamp to hold it together. It's a full length 4" with a modified flowmaster muffler so I'm sure it's a restriction.

Should be good to get any bugs worked out now while putting a few miles on the engine and then look to add the smaller pulley I have. The blower is no where near it's max yet, so it should move a lot more air once at it's max speed. I don't have the numbers in front of me but when I did the math before it should put the D1 at 65K at 6500.

The last time that pulley was on the engine it made 18lbs at 5400 RPM, so I'll probably end up switching to E85 and see what it'll do with more boost and octane. I don't think this pulley will work with just 93.

 

Holy crap Jacob! Those are great numbers through a 4l80 and a 9", on 93 octane at 11psi no less! That sounds like 9 sec. power right there. I can only hope my car will put out those kind of numbers with my YSi. I love the RPM you're turning too, sounds like the perfect street setup. You deserve it after everything you've been through with that car. I'm very very jealous.

 

You must be a Monk because I would have smashed that car with a bat or burned it! haha

Steve

 

Thanks Jim! I'm pretty pleased, especially knowing that there's so much more left in the combo. The small pulley should put it at around 18 lbs of boost and then it's a matter of deciding what fuel to run. I'd really like to go to E85. I'll get in touch with you later today if you're around so we can chat some.

I'll also post up a dyno sheet soon as well.

 

Sweet, I was hoping for around 700rwhp with my setup (very similiar to yours) what cam is in it, roughly what size.

Few questions, was the Tq Converter locked on the dyno?
You spraying Meth on top of your Pump gas? Any idea on IAT's?
What is your current pulley combo?

Great starting numbers, this thing is going to be a monster, ever thought about putting on a single plane?

 

subscribing

 

Cam is by Cam Motion. It's a grind they made several years ago as a custom for the guy who had the engine built originally.

~232/241 on a 114 LSA, 565/596 lift.

I'm unsure if the converter was locked, it likely was.

No meth or water.

No idea on IATs right now.

Pulley combo is the 7.65" crank pulley and I forget which diameter the smaller one is. I think it's a 3.XX. I should know this but I forget at the moment. I do know that the smaller one I have is about as small as I can go and with the current crank pulley it spins the blower to 65,000 at 6500 engine RPM, which is max RPM for it. You could do the reverse math if you wanted to. I thought it's 3.44", maybe that's the one on it. I will do it later or take measurements again at some point.

I may switch to a single plane later on but I don't think I really need it right now and if I was to fix something with airflow it would be a somewhat different exhaust system (maybe some different headers and a different muffler setup).

 

A 7.65 crank and a 3.4 (procharger pulley) puts the rpm at 59,962 a 6500, so even with that you would have a little rpm to go on the blower. Either go with a custom pulley setup or see more rpm. I have a custom 3.2 BP built for my setup.
Again sweet setup, hope mine does similiar to yours maxed out.

 

It's a D1, not a D1SC, so the step-up ratio is a bit different. It's 4.44:1 rather than 4:10:1. Supposedly the blower has a different impeller with more top end as well, but I haven't seen anything factual on this, just heard on the net or in conversation.

D1SC: 4.1 step up and 62,000 max impeller rpm.
(crank pulley diameter/blower pulley diameter)*4.1*engine rpm = impeller rpm
(CP/BP)*4.1*6,500=62,000

D1: 4.44 step up and 65,000 max impeller rpm.
(crank pulley diameter/blower pulley diameter)*4.44*engine rpm = impeller rpm
(CP/BP)*4.44*6,500=65,000

(7.65/3.7)*4.44*6500=59,670
(7.65/3.4)*4.44*6500=64,935

After doing the math I think I might have the 3.7 pulley on there right now. With the 3.4 pulley on it made 18 lbs of boost at 5400 RPM during a tuning run once. It's hard to believe that the last 5000 RPM of blower speed makes that much of a difference. The current pulley might be a little larger than 3.7. I won't know for sure until I take a measurement.

 

I also run the 7.6 --> 3.4" pd pulley set-up on a D1 (app... 97ss 383 MM6). The larger step-up head gear ratio increase really helps. I matched the D1 rpm to the basic rpm of my cam (a CM 231*/240/ 0.536"/0.563 - 114lsa). I had to re-cal my bypass valves from the std spring set-up. I also had trouble with the 12 rib tight-side/ loose-side tension, and, modded the ATI idler mechanism to allow better belt tracking/ and low amplitude vibration. I was close to purchase of a F1A since it had a 5.4:1 step ratio. I the F series would be even better than a D1, but, my calc put me @ a custom 3.8" pd driven pulley on the F1A SC head.B.

 

How many lbs of boost are you seeing at your max RPM and do you run it on pump gas?

 

Getting the car from the tuner this Saturday. I'll post a few more pictures soon.

 

nice set up i am still having problems with my 12 rib set up with belt slippage (which tenser are you using> )